


The Summer of Fifteen, Almost Sixteen

by veeagainst



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 08:08:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11436708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veeagainst/pseuds/veeagainst
Summary: Hermione wants something Tonks can't give.





	The Summer of Fifteen, Almost Sixteen

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this many many years ago (the title of the Word Doc I found it in is "Femmeslash 2006"). At the time, I 100% identified with Hermione. Now I 100% identify with Tonks, and I don't feel good about her choices in this.

**The Summer of Fifteen, Almost Sixteen**

  1. **Waiting**



 

It is a dusky sunset, all orange hazy air over turrets in the distance, the heat rising from the asphalt in rolling waves.  Hermione sits inside the air-conditioned coffee shop and leans her forehead against the glass.  There is a mug of coffee beside a book on the table before her, both untouched.  She wants the sun to set; she has been waiting for hours for the sun to set.  Someone from the Order will be coming, then, and she knows who it will be.

            Only slightly over a year ago, Professor Lupin had called Hermione the cleverest witch “of her age.”  Now, most of the way through the age of fifteen, she can’t remember what it was like to be that young, or to believe him when he said that.  Every day she learns of the existence of vast multitudes of things she will never know.  For every fact she uncovers, there are ten more that require deeper digging.  Hermione will never run out of books to read, nor will she ever read all the books she desires.  She keeps comprehensive lists of the things she needs to learn, and they are scattered like autumn leaves around the bedroom she shares with Ginny in the dark house in London where they have come to spend the summer.  Sometimes, when she cannot sleep and Ginny has managed it, Hermione sits up and makes her lists, moving from one topic to another with deft fingers and a racing mind. 

            The shadows from the wharf opposite her deepen, their dark fingers extending off the buildings and across the Thames.  Hermione watches them move, imperceptible in their reach until they take her by surprise by crossing another landmark – now the span of that bridge, now the prow of that docked boat, now the face of that warehouse – and feels the sweat trickling down her back and between her breasts.  The coffee shop is cold, and her hands are red and shrunken with it, but she cannot stop her nerves. 

            Hermione has been having a lot of trouble sleeping this summer.  Ginny thinks it has something to do with the house itself, because the Blacks hated Muggleborns so much, but Hermione knows it has more to do with internal restlessness than external hostility.  When she and Ron are in the same room, she senses it – and when they are not, she senses it even more. 

            Ginny suggested Ron as a reason too.

            A crack cuts across the twilight, and Hermione jerks her head away from the window and stares wildly into her own reflection in the glass.  It is too dark now, and she cannot see the world outside, but the hair on her arms tingles and she shivers as the door to the coffee shop opens.  Nothing in the world could make her turn around in her seat and see who has entered, but her heart is fluttering wildly and she is suddenly hyperaware of every tiny noise and movement around her. 

 

  1. **What you want is rarely what you need**



 

            The steps leading up to the guest room are made of stone and cold despite the summertime.  Somehow this house sucks all the warmth out of the air and turns it into a clinging moisture that makes Hermione want to wrap herself in thick cardigans and her Gryffindor scarf.  She hates to come out at night for fear that she will meet Kreacher; she can’t stand to see him, so bent and miserable and malicious, imprinted with all the sins of his masters. 

            But Hermione can’t sleep tonight, for the first time since she was a small child terrified by a big book she’d read.  It’s strange; cleaning the house had exhausted all of them.  Ron and Harry had gone to bed mumbling their goodnights and Ginny had been asleep before Hermione had finished undressing.  Then Hermione had put her head to her pillow and hadn’t been able to keep her eyes closed for the better part of three hours.  The scene in the kitchen kept replaying itself over and over again behind her eyelids, and it disturbed her, somehow, to see it repeated.  Hermione is usually imperturbable, analytical, but what happened after dinner simultaneously piques her curiosity and makes her want to look away.

Now she pauses, one foot balanced on the topmost step, her fingers tentative on the wall to her right.  Somewhere up ahead there is a portrait of a pale woman with flowing blond hair and glittering eyes made – literally – of jewels.  Earlier in the day, Sirius had told a blood-curdling tale about her with the sort of morbid relish he reserved only for stories of his family.  Hermione stares up into the eyes and knows that they are telling the room’s sole occupant who stands outside her door. 

And then the door opens, and Tonks stands there, rubbing at her eyes and yawning. 

“Hermione?” she asks.  Hermione wonders if there is a note of disappointment in her voice too subtle, too _adult_ , for Hermione to hear. 

“It’s me.”

Tonks stretches, a line of pale skin showing between her camisole and pyjama bottoms.  “Couldn’t sleep?”

Hermione shakes her head.  She may be fifteen, but she is almost sixteen.  She has never felt older – never been older – than she is right now.  It is immediately, glaringly obvious what she wants. 

Tonks opens the door a bit wider.  “Me either.  Kind of.  Just drifting.”  Hermione looks between her and the door and the sliver of white sheets she can see in the distance.  “Come on in,” Tonks adds.

Hermione steps inside, the bare skin of her arm skimming Tonks’ stomach, and sits on the edge of the bed.  Tonks shuts the door and sits on the floor at Hermione’s feet, a hand playfully on Hermione’s bare knee.  “This bloody house is fucking with all of us,” she says. 

“I don’t know if it’s the house,” Hermione ventures.  “I was thinking--”

“About what?”

Hermione breaks off and shrugs.  “A lot of things.  I just couldn’t stop thinking long enough to fall asleep.”

“Don’t you hate that?” Tonks asks rhetorically.  She leans her cheek against the side of the bed and shuts her eyes.  “Think you’ll have a miserable summer?”

Hermione deliberately puts a hand into Tonks’ pink hair and runs her fingers through its soft, short ends.  “Don’t remind me that it’s my summer holiday I’m spending here.”

“Comes a point,” Tonks says gently, “when you won’t have summer holidays anymore.  And you’re going to regret that you spent this one here.”

Hermione lets that pass, for now.  She resents being reminded of her age.  “Where did you go when you went to Hogwarts?  Over the summers, I mean?”

“Stayed at home, mostly.  I had some different jobs.  Before seventh year, I went with a lot of other Ravenclaws to this place in Cornwall for two weeks, and we learned how to surf like Muggles do.  We had loads of fun.  I kept flipping off my surfboard, putting my face into the sand, that kind of thing, but some of my friends managed to ride waves.”  Tonks pauses and looks up at Hermione.  “Maybe one of these summers, everything will be over, and you and Ron and Harry can go somewhere.”

“I can’t imagine that,” Hermione says, staring down at Tonks.  “This summer isn’t so miserable, anyway.  It’s interesting.”

“Mm,” Tonks hums, still looking up at Hermione’s face.  “Interesting how?”

“Meeting everyone,” Hermione says.  “Learning about the Order.  Seeing how the war is really being fought.”  She pauses long enough to slide off the bed and sit on the floor beside Tonks.  “Mostly just the meeting everyone aspect.  Everyone in the Order is so fascinating…”  
            Tonks laughs.  “Only you would say that, Hermione.  You’re curious about everything.”

Hermione thinks that Tonks has figured it out exactly, so she leans forward and is not surprised when Tonks’ warm mouth meets hers. 

 

  1. **In the kitchen**



           

            “But why would anyone want that?” Sirius demands in a cold, nasal voice.  Seated beside him at the kitchen table, Professor Lupin bites his lip in an obvious attempt not to laugh; Tonks is across from them, giggling into her cup of tea.  Hermione, who has just walked in the door and has no idea what they are discussing, freezes and stares at the dirty dishes in her hands, feeling awkward and young.

            Sirius grins at his audience without noticing her and continues, this time in his normal voice, “So I said, ‘Severus, I will do anything I can to help you--’”

            “Complete shit,” Lupin says, looking at Sirius with raised eyebrows.  “Complete, utter--”

            “‘I will do anything I can,’” Sirius repeats, meeting Lupin’s eyes and grinning more, “and then I reached into the desk and pulled out the--”

            “Hermione!” Tonks says, and Sirius shuts his mouth abruptly. 

            “Sorry,” Hermione says.  “I didn’t mean to interrupt.  Sorry.”

            Lupin smiles at her and says, “Nothing to apologize for.”

            “You can go on with your story,” Hermione adds, moving quickly to the sink and picking up the sponge. 

            “Are you going to do those by hand?” Tonks asks curiously.  She is leaning against the counter, close enough to Hermione that she can see the fine laugh lines starting at the corners of Tonks’ mouth. 

            “Oh,” Hermione says, now looking frantically for the soap, “I—I can’t do magic for it, I’m too young…”

            “Have some mercy on the girl, Nymphadora,” Sirius says.  “She’s only fifteen.”

            “Oh,” Tonks says, sounding genuinely surprised.  “I always forget.”

            Lupin stretches out and taps his wand to the side of the dish.  Immediately the sponge leaps up and sets to work, and he smiles at Hermione and says, “Do you want some tea?”

            Hermione glances to the side at Tonks, who has her head cocked and is looking not at Hermione, but at Lupin.  “I don’t want to interrupt--”

            “Sirius was just telling a wholly inappropriate story about a certain other member of the Order,” Lupin says, still smiling.  “I’m sure he’ll start over for you.”

            “Of course,” Sirius says.  Hermione looks back at him and sees him smiling in Lupin’s direction.  To her right, Tonks is now watching Sirius with a slight frown.  Hermione is confused, and that is the worst feeling in the world, so she smiles too and says, “Ok, sure, tea.”

            Sirius tells the story, and Hermione drinks her tea, and Tonks sits beside her at the table and even though Tonks keeps looking between Sirius and Lupin, her hand winds up resting on Hermione’s arm, and then playing with her hair.  After the two men have left, Tonks kisses Hermione.  It starts as a light brush of lips on the corner of Hermione’s mouth, but rapidly turns into something else.  They lean awkwardly in their seats, side-by-side at a heavy stone table, until Tonks stands and pulls Hermione up to her height – they are within inches of each other, Tonks slightly taller although Hermione thinks that she might still be able to grow – and even though Hermione has never kissed a girl – never kissed anyone but Viktor – it is surprisingly good.  She shuts her eyes and Tonks threads her fingers through Hermione’s thick, curly hair as Hermione puts one arm around Tonks’ slender waist and the other up to rest on Tonks’ arm.  They are not so much pressed into one another as leaning gracefully, bending towards their joined mouths. 

            Then they hear someone clattering down the stairs, and they break away, Tonks grinning shyly and Hermione’s heart pounding in such a way that she can do nothing except grin back.

 

  1. **Rendezvous**



 

            Tonks nearly knocks the coffee cup onto the book as she sits down.  She is in Muggle clothing, a thin black tank top and tight jeans, and she crosses her arms across her chest and shivers before she speaks.

            “You knew I’d be coming here.”

            “Professor Lupin told me,” Hermione says. 

            Tonks takes a sip from the coffee cup to cover whatever it is that she seems about to say.  “Yuck, this is freezing.”

            “I’ve been waiting a long time.”

            Tonks smiles darkly.  “You’ve been waiting all summer, I’d say,” she says. 

            Hermione shrugs.  “Tomorrow I’m going back to Hogwarts.”

            “I know, I’m in the escort to King’s Cross,” Tonks says. 

            “Then…”

            “What?” Tonks asks gently.  “Hermione, you’re so young.”

            Hermione shakes her head.  “So I’m constantly reminded.”

            “It’s true,” Tonks says.  “You’ve got no clue what you want, or what you need.  You don’t understand that there’s a time and a place for everything, and that when it ends there’s nothing you can do to make it work…”

            Hermione had refused to see it, to see anything but the stolen kisses in corners of the house, the days when she and Tonks slipped away to spend time alone in London, the occasional nights when Tonks stayed in the house and Hermione would creep up the stairs to the guest room…

            “Is this it, then?” she asks. 

            Tonks sighs.  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

            “I know.”

            “It was just a summertime thing…”

            “I know.”

            Tonks meets her eyes, one final time, and says, “Do you really?  Are you just telling me that to make me… I don’t know, to make me think you understand?”

            Hermione shakes her head.  “I really do understand,” she says, and she means it.  She remembers that first afternoon in the kitchen and thinks that she understands more than she will ever tell Tonks. 

            “Good,” Tonks says.  She stands up and replaces the coffee cup; leans down and kisses Hermione quickly on the cheek.  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

            Hermione smiles at her back as she walks away, because she is almost sixteen and that is the mature thing to do.


End file.
